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Reaney's Pick: Rooftop to restaurant

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Anna Atkinson has come in from the barge and down from the roof for her music-making at Stratford this summer.

Last year’s on-stage “fiddler” in the Stratford Festival’s Fiddler On The Roof, Atkinson is playing at Rundles Restaurant as part of the 2014 Stratford Summer Music fest.

In earlier Summer Music fest duties, she’d been on its on-the-water BargeMusic venue by the Avon boathouse.

Atkinson, of Toronto, is heard playing her original Days Of Cinnamon from her fine 2011 album Mooniture in this week’s Reaney’s Pick video.

“It’s about summertime (road) trips so it’s appropriate for summer,” Atkinson said during Tuesday’s shoot. “And it’s got a little romance and that never hurt anything.”

Atkinson is heard singing while plucking her viola almost ukulele-style during Days Of Cinnamon.

The song is likely to be heard during the six weekends she’s at Rundles for Saturday and Sunday lunchtime gigs.

Her Rundles performances have such themes as Our Family Porch and The Cabarets Of Stratford.

Windsor-born and University of Victoria trained, Atkinson also plays violin, banjo, guitar, piano, accordion and musical saw. She learned how to play the musical saw after discovering it was required as part of her Stratford Festival assignments in a deal she’d already signed.

“Then I went out (and) got a saw,” Atkinson said.

As a teenager, Atkinson was an ally of fellow former Windsorite Allison Brown, now a London singer-songwriter and program director at Western campus FM radio station 94.9 CHRW. Brown and Atkinson were members of a music group, The Rusty Halos.

“She was the first person to play my music on the radio,” Atkinson said.

In addition to solo gigs, Atkinson has a wide range of Toronto projects on the go. Her musical collaborations include a duo with Toronto jazz guitarist and composer David Occhipinti and her continuing participation in the Toronto-based quartet Words Around The Waist. This spring, she launched Grannis Bea, a “groove” or “sparsecore” trio with RJ Satchithananthan, trombone and bass, and Mackenzie Longpre, drums, which she leads on voice and synth.

Stratford Summer Music’s 14th season recently opened its six-week run, with more than 100 musical events planned.